EDUC 330: Seminar in Teaching (Schneider): Finding Journal Articles & Other Educational Research

How do scholarly journals differ from popular (non-scholarly) publications? Check out this chart for the basic differences.

Many of the databases include both scholarly sources and non-scholarly sources (such as news articles). To limit your search to scholarly articles, use the menu options to the side of your search results.

To limit your search to more up-to-date research, use the database menu options to limit your search by date range.

Spend some time brainstorming keywords and search terms. Use subject headings or descriptors to help generate search terms.

When you find a good article, look at its References or Works Cited list. That will often lead you to other useful sources.

Do you have an article citation, but need to find the full-text article? Three Steps to Finding the Full Text Article:

1. Check the Electronic Journals A-Z List  by searching for the name of the Journal name (not the article title) in the "Find" box. If the journal comes up in your results, look at the years of coverage to make sure that the library has the year you are looking for. If yes, click on the link for the journal and then scroll to the volume you need or search within the journal for the article.

2. If you aren't able to find the journal in the Electronic Journal list, check the Catalog to find the journal in print by searching for the name of the journal (not the article title).  If the journal comes up in your results, look at the years of coverage to make sure that the library has the year you are looking for. If yes, copy down the call number so that you'll be able to locate the journal in the stacks.

3. If you can't get the article in print or online, order the article through InterLibrary Loan.

ERIC (1966-Present) "Educational Resource Information Center." Provides access to journals in the field of education. 

Education Journals (ProQuest) Cross-disciplinary providing full-text access to over 3000 journals including those in Education.

Educator's Reference Complete Selection of more than 450 full-text academic journals, hundreds of full-text reports, and many premier reference sources. Included content focuses on educational principles, child development and psychology, and best practices in education. 

Multi-disciplinary databases

• Academic Search Premier
• ProQuest Central
• Expanded Academic ASAP
• JSTOR An archive of scholarly journal articles from a variety of subject areas, including education. You have the option of limiting your search by academic discipline. Keep in mind: JSTOR doesn't provide access to the most recent 3-5 years of most journals so it is not the best place to find the most up-to-date research on a topic.
• Project Muse 

Check out the library's e-journals list to search for articles in specific journals. For example:

• American Educational Research Journal

• Educational Researcher

• Review of Educational Research

Google Scholar is a great tool for doing a broad search of scholarly literature on your topic:

• Google Scholar searches across many disciplines. 
• Your search results will include a broad range of sources, including journal articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, and abstracts. 
• Results come from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. 
• Google Scholar also includes court opinions and patents.

You'll just want to keep some things in mind:

• Coverage is not comprehensive. Many sources are hidden in publishers' databases and journals that Google can't search, so you'll want to look at the library's article databases as well. 
• Search results can include links to things like course syllabi and high school term papers, so you'll want to evaluate what you find. 

You can access advanced search features by clicking the arrow in the right of the search box. These features allow you to refine your search.

Look for the words Get Full Txt @ Holy Cross next to an article. You should be able to access any of these articles through the library's subscriptions. If you come across a source that Holy Cross does not have access to, remember that you can request the item through Interlibrary Loan.

Scholar Settings When you are on the Holy Cross campus, Google Scholar will automatically show you those Get Full Txt @ Holy Cross links next to articles that Holy Cross has access to. If you are off-campus, you can set your Scholar Settings to show the links for accessing sources through Holy Cross. You can modify your settings by selecting the Settings link in the upper-right corner of Google Scholar webpage and then selecting Library Links. You can also modify the Scholar Settings to allow you to export sources into RefWorks by selecting RefWorks from the drop-down menu under Bibliography Manager.

Click on the Cited by and Related articles links at the bottom of a search result to find more relevant articles and books.